Nice one, Sami. To take a tangent off something you said about being uncomfortable with mystery, there’s a deep impulse here. It could be thought as synonymous with a desire to control. On what I think is one of the best audio essays on this topic I’ve heard, I commend this to you by my friend, Kenneth Crowther: https://open.spotify.com/show/73I3mljWyimGX1Q5K3vj8u
Another thing I find sustainability people awfully quiet about are the resources needed to build the renewable power generation infrastructure. It'd be fine to acknowledge it - there are no free lunches after all. Pretending it doesn't exist just seems silly.
Yes there are always trade offs in sustainability and we don’t do anyone any favours by glossing over this. It’s not all win-win. We need to be honest about the fact that delivering renewable power will involve a significant scale up of some types of mining and that comes with environmental costs.
It's a difficult thing to come to grips with, given literally everything we do - or don't do - have consequences, some of which we might not like to acknowledge. It'd be nice to have the perfect solution, but humans and perfect never did get along ;)
Another thought: could the impulse to simplicity be construed not merely as a desire to rid one’s life of complexity, but instead as a desire for better ergonomics, for better and more convivial and human-scale ways to interface with that complexity. (Thinking of J. Licklider’s paper on man machine symbiosis here)
Yes, it absolutely could be - in the human scale, when we're talking about our personal lives. (however even good ergonomics is a complicated thing when you dive deep into it).
What my point was more aimed as was the more broad movement of anti-experts, anti-science, anti-modernity, the last of which I have some sympathy on, but few people railing against "the system" would really like it if the system was dismantled.
Nice one, Sami. To take a tangent off something you said about being uncomfortable with mystery, there’s a deep impulse here. It could be thought as synonymous with a desire to control. On what I think is one of the best audio essays on this topic I’ve heard, I commend this to you by my friend, Kenneth Crowther: https://open.spotify.com/show/73I3mljWyimGX1Q5K3vj8u
Pining for simplicity without actually acknowledging how shitty the past was is common to sustainability folks as well.
Another thing I find sustainability people awfully quiet about are the resources needed to build the renewable power generation infrastructure. It'd be fine to acknowledge it - there are no free lunches after all. Pretending it doesn't exist just seems silly.
Yes there are always trade offs in sustainability and we don’t do anyone any favours by glossing over this. It’s not all win-win. We need to be honest about the fact that delivering renewable power will involve a significant scale up of some types of mining and that comes with environmental costs.
It's a difficult thing to come to grips with, given literally everything we do - or don't do - have consequences, some of which we might not like to acknowledge. It'd be nice to have the perfect solution, but humans and perfect never did get along ;)
Another thought: could the impulse to simplicity be construed not merely as a desire to rid one’s life of complexity, but instead as a desire for better ergonomics, for better and more convivial and human-scale ways to interface with that complexity. (Thinking of J. Licklider’s paper on man machine symbiosis here)
Yes, it absolutely could be - in the human scale, when we're talking about our personal lives. (however even good ergonomics is a complicated thing when you dive deep into it).
What my point was more aimed as was the more broad movement of anti-experts, anti-science, anti-modernity, the last of which I have some sympathy on, but few people railing against "the system" would really like it if the system was dismantled.
Except for this guy: https://oneworld-publications.com/work/the-moneyless-man/